Educating qualitative health researchers in Brazil: students and teachers’ perspectives

The objective is to analyze the teaching of qualitative research in health in graduate studies in Brazil from the perspective of actors involved in the process, aiming to understand challenges and possibilities in the education of future researchers. Three focus groups were conducted with 37 participants in the space of a qualitative health research conference. Four categories emerged in the analysis: biomedical scientific field; productivism and academic evaluation; teaching strategies, and curriculum and educator training. The results reveal challenges in the education of researchers in qualitative research in Brazil in a scientific field dominated by the positivist tradition, low literacy of scientists in qualitative methods and a predominance of academic productivist culture. It is concluded that prejudice hinders the education of new researchers, but there are initiatives of excellence in training, such as the mandatory teaching of this approach at undergraduate courses and interdisciplinary education at graduate level.
Source: Physis: Revista de Saude Coletiva - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Source Type: research